Men should have absolute rule over society. This was the mindset back when women's rights activists were considered rare and unorthodox. In A Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions, Elizabeth Cady Stanton rejects the status quo and finds solutions to the overbearing problems she sees within society. A concept that has greatly been dreamt over throughout history has been challenged, by a woman. Elizabeth Cady Stanton exerts repetition, allusion, and pathos to express her opinions in favor of increasing women's rights.
Most people do not know of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, but much to people’s surprise, she was just as important in Women’s Rights Movement as Susan B. Anthony, if not more important. Elizabeth Cady Stanton helped to create remarkable strides in the Women's Rights. During her life, Elizabeth was an American suffragist, social activist, abolitionist, writer, lecturer, and chief philosopher of the women’s rights movement. She also organized the Seneca Falls Convention with Lucretia Mott whose aim was to obtain equal rights for women. During the Convention, Cady Stanton wrote the “Declaration of Sentiments” which declared that American women should have the same civil and political rights that American men had, including the right to vote.
The Declaration of Sentiments, a document written by activists Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucrietia Mott, discusses injustices towards woman and the rights that have been withheld from them, such as voting and denied admittance into colleges. Stanton and Mott want readers, primarily men, to understand, to take action, and to fight against the opression that has been put on women of all ages, race and religion in the United States. Without the help of Stanton and Mott, womens rights may have been an overlooked issue yesterday and today, therefore, their message is incontestably crucial. To Stanton and Mott, women were created equal to men, and to further their declaration of this equality, they state that the rights that have been unfairly
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott meet at a National Anti-Slavery Convention, which influenced them to hold a Women’s Rights Convention. In 1848 they held a national women’s rights convention, known as the Seneca Falls Convention. At the convention Elizabeth Cady Stanton created the “Declaration of Sentiments”. Proposed in the Declaration was “that all men and women are created equal”. Over 300 men and women gathered at Seneca Falls for the convention and unanimously voted for women to have the right to have equal rights as men.
Women did not have many rights in the 19th century. They could not vote, serve on juries, if married could not keep wages or own property, and women could not get a good education. At a convention when two women tried to join a meeting they could not have a role in the proceeding. Later she made a convention that over 300 men and women showed up to. Then Stanton wrote the Declaration of Sediments that showed the rights they wanted.
For a very long time, the voting rights of the citizens have been a problem in the US. It started out with only men with land being able to vote, and then expanded to white men, and then to all men. However, women were never in the situation, they were disregarded and believed to not be worthy enough to have the same rights as men. They were essentially being treated as property, therefore having no rights. But, in Susan B. Anthony’s speech, she hits upon the point that women are just as righteous as men.
In this article about Stanton I found, Sara Shull states, “Elizabeth Cady Stanton rebelled against the conventions that limited her own self realization and independence. Her words and actions encouraged other women to embrace their autonomy and fight for their self sovereign birthright.” This shows how Stanton went to be a role model for other women and help them fight for their own. Further on, Elizabeth Cady Stanton later wrote, "The general discontent I felt with woman 's portion as wife, housekeeper, physician, and spiritual guide, the chaotic conditions into which everything fell without her constant supervision, and the wearied, anxious look of the majority of women, impressed me with a strong feeling that some active measures should be taken to remedy the wrongs of society in general, and of women in particular. My experience at the World Anti-slavery Convention, all I had read of the legal status of women, and the oppression I saw everywhere, together swept across my soul, intensified now by many personal experiences.
However, when thought of, most people remember her contributions to the women’s rights movement. She, and other feminists such as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, began to realize that there were numerous similarities between slaves and women. Both were fighting to get away from the male-dominated culture and beliefs. In 1848, these women began a convention in Seneca Falls, regarding women’s rights(Brinkley 330). They believed that women should be able to vote, basing their argument on the clause “all men and women are created equal”.
Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton both are leading women’s rights activists during their time; their work influenced the American Peoples’ view on women. They founded one of the earliest pro-women’s rights movements in the country, which was essential in spreading feminism throughout America. Their lifelong battle against inequality to combat slavery and promote feminism through literary works like; 'The Revolution' and the Declaration of Sentiments speeches, succeeded after their death when women got the right to vote.
Stanton believed that a public protest of women’s right was the next step to get equality for women’s legal position. By this belief, Stanton tried to make a draft of “Declaration of Right and Sentiments”, which she modeled after the “Declaration of Independence”. In this declaration, Stanton demanded moral, economic and political equality for women. With her friends, Stanton was able to hold the first women’s right convention on 19-20 July 1848 at Stanton house in Seneca Falls, New York. That is why; the convention is called Seneca Falls Convention.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton is the first person thought of when people think of Women’s Suffrage. She and her friends were the ones who made Women’s Suffrage known to America. Throughout her life she had the chance to have seven children, and still get to work and fight for Women’s Suffrage. She started many organizations and really pushed to get Suffrage. If she didn’t Suffrage most likely wouldn’t of been amended in 1920.
However, for the women who were educated; like Elizabeth Cady Stanton, they used it to their advantage and brought women together by hosting a women’s right convention and had The Declaration of Sentiments signed by at least a hundred people who supported women’s
While Stanton and Brady do disagree with how women are viewed and treated, Stanton’s priority was fairness in politics and education, not so much on the injustices that occurred within the home Elizabeth Cady Stanton was pushing for women’s right to vote and to participate fully in the running of the country. She shadows the Declaration of Independence to gain credibility and patriotism, particularly from the phrase, “We hold these truths to be self evident that all men, and women, are created equal” (Patterns,557). The Declaration of Independance and the Declaration of Sentiments are purposefully compared. For example, the colonists wrote the Declaration of Independence in order to inform the King of the unfairness and to take action and to make change. The Declaration of Sentiments does the exact same thing, only instead of the problems bing taxation without representation and the quartering acts, the issues were freedoms to vote, have property and own oneself apart from a spouse, followed by the promise to take action against the injustice.
Susan B. Anthony, a woman who was arrested for illegally voting in the president election of 1872, in her “On Women's Right to Vote” speech, argues that women deserve to be treated as citizens of America and be able to vote and have all the rights that white males in America have. She begins by introducing her purpose, then provides evidence of how women are citizens of America, not just males by using the preamble of the Constitution, then goes on about the how this problem has became a big problem and occurs in every home in the nation, and finally states that women deserve rights because the discrimination against them is not valid because the laws and constitutions give rights to every CITIZEN in America. Anthony purpose is to make the woman of America realize that the treatment and limitations that hold them back are not correct because they are citizens and they deserve to be treated like one. She adopts a expressive and confident tone to encourage and light the hearts of American woman. To make her speech effective, she incorporates ethos in her speech to support her claims and reasons.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Shulamith Firestone Elizabeth Cady Stanton, an abolitionist and most importantly, the leading suffragist of the women’s rights movement in America was born on November 1815 in Johnstown, New York. Her father was an important Federalist attorney who introduced her to the law and gave her the proper exposure to social and legal activism which allowed Stanton to realize, from a young age, how unjustly the law favored men over women. This early understanding of the discrimination between the sexes helped her set the course to advocating for women’s rights which Stanton was to travel the duration of her life. Stanton was one of the few surviving children of her parent’s marriage. Grieving, her mother fell into depression and her father wholly immersed himself into